ARCK kicks off school year with a new partnership

Boston art-centered nonprofit, Art Resource Collaborative for Kids has partnered with another school in the city to provide art classes to students who would otherwise have limited exposure to art in school.

ARCK has teamed with the John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Jamaica Plain and is celebrating the accomplishment and the opening of a new school year with a fundraiser called “Dance for ART!” on November 8th.

Tickets for the public event are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. For more ticket information contact ARCK at info@arckboston.org.

Attendees can live out the event’s title through participation in a Zumba-styled dance lesson led by Boston-based Zumba instructor Alexa Malzone.

Artwork from students who participated in ARCK enrichment programs will line the venue’s walls.

“The display will highlight what ARCK’s students have learned and the creative connections they’ve developed between art, literacy and visual literacy,” said a press release from ARCK founder and executive director Sara Mraish Demeter.

The artwork will be for sale with all proceeds going toward the purchase of art supplies and teacher training and support in art.

The event will feature a Stella and Dot Jewelry Trunk Show hosted by Stella and Dot independent stylist Kim Bender and a fashion show and sale by local designer Ashley Shavon.

ARCK will benefit from a percentage of the sales, according to the press release.

Mraish-Demeter founded ARCK officially in 2012 after enrolling her son in kindergarten at the Josiah Quincy School in 2011 and learning about the school’s art class absence.

The art enthusiast and another parent at Josiah Quincy created a committee and recruited 40 artist volunteers to work with children at the school and put together an art festival.

The art festival opened the door for Mraish Demeter to work with the Gardner Pilot Academy during the last school year when ARCK was launched and planted the seed for ARCK’s mission to create opportunities for all Boston Public School students to have visual art experience.

“It gave me that hope and inspiration that this should be done everywhere,” Mraish Demeter said in a past interview with The Bay State Banner. “All the kids, I think, in the Boston Public School system need to have that experience.”